Heark! My accomplices have been struck down by some monster in the darkness! I must flee before I meet a similar fate!
The architect flees!
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Johann overhears the following, in Italian: Listen carefully, and keep secret all that I tell you now! You have sworn yourselves in service to the Church of Lucifer, as have I... Great shall be our reward if we but serve faithfully! So the Antichrist has promised! We are going to prepare the way for the great holocaust to come... Rome shall burn in dragonfire, and we are tasked with making certain these aqueducts will spread ruin and destruction rather than salvation. Oil will run through these channels instead of water, and ignite to further the destruction of Rome! Keep this secret, or face a dire punishment at the hands of the servants of Lucifer, Our Dark Lord!... Hold, something stirs down yonder passageway... Go and make certain we have not been discovered...
As the paladins of Saint Peter’s Church direct their attentions downward and at monstrous enemies of mankind that make themselves obvious—chokers, stirges, gremlins, et cetera—Filippo Brunelleschi works diligently, his evil unnoticed by the paladins by virtue of distraction and the magical amulet he wears to obscure the paladins’ ability to divine his intentions... Just as one can prepare for holocaust to prevent, one can prepare the way for holocaust to be encouraged... These aqueducts can conduct fire as well as they conduct water, given the proper adaptations... oil...Greek Fire...these can run in those ancient channels to spread the conflagration just as easily as irrigating Roma with water...
In the spiderweb-choked pipes of the ancient Roman aqueduct Aqua Appia, a nest of stirges must be exterminated by the papal paladins providing security for Filippo Brunelleschi’s excavation crew... In Italian: Good Heavens! What else has taken up a lair in these old channels? First chokers, then giant spiders, now these dire mosquitos—stirges, the people call them—filthy pests!
Transported from Florence to Rome via teleport spell (cast by Cosimo de Medici’s astrologer and personal conjurer), renowned architect, sculptor and mechanical engineer Filippo Brunelleschi presents himself to Pope Eugenius IV at the papal court in the Basilica of Saint Peter, and offers his services in repairing the ancient aqueducts of Rome in preparation for the coming dragon attack... A crew of master stonemasons and carpenters are placed in his command, and plans are immediately drawn up and set into motion... |